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zyzah's review
4.0
Beautiful Beautiful read. Selves is a collection of 24 Creative Nonfiction by African writers. While I couldn't connect with a few, I connected greatly with most of them.
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I can't even pick a favourite story. I read Umar Turaki's story twice, I cried the second time. I called my sisters in school after I read Tolu Daniel's story (just read the book to know why), I decided to try to write a creative non-fiction after I read Sibongile Fisher's really beautiful story and I had to google Postpartum depression after reading Megan Ross's story. I realised I knew so little about pregnancy.
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These stories were all different but they all came from a passionate place, they all are products of the bravery to speak the truth exploring family relationships, love, writing, politics, terrorism, health, childbirth, drug use, heartbreak and many more themes that would resonate with your "self"
.
.
I can't even pick a favourite story. I read Umar Turaki's story twice, I cried the second time. I called my sisters in school after I read Tolu Daniel's story (just read the book to know why), I decided to try to write a creative non-fiction after I read Sibongile Fisher's really beautiful story and I had to google Postpartum depression after reading Megan Ross's story. I realised I knew so little about pregnancy.
.
These stories were all different but they all came from a passionate place, they all are products of the bravery to speak the truth exploring family relationships, love, writing, politics, terrorism, health, childbirth, drug use, heartbreak and many more themes that would resonate with your "self"
.
thatothernigeriangirl's review
4.0
SELVES is an Afro anthology of creative nonfiction that contains 24 extremely diverse anecdotes from 24 authors, from different parts of the continent. The anecdotes covered topics such as homosexuality, writing, language, faith, child birth, relationship, love and even Boko Haram.
When Basit, the curator of this anthology, pitched the book to me, he mentioned quite passionately, that it took him and his team a while to gather, edit and publish the anthology and the fact that “creative nonfiction” was an untapped genre in African literature, encouraged them a great deal.
If you followed Brandon’s humans of New York series from the continent, this book is a more literary version of that storytelling and it forces you to come to terms with the fact that most things we read in fictions aren’t actually “fiction” but an extension of how our community experiences life differently.
Oh and my favorite anecdotes are This Hell Not Mine by Kenechi Uzor, The Shapes of Loss by Umar Turaki and Like Rambo’s Bullets by Gbolahan Badmus
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